"Yes," said the mussel. "For that matter, I have had experiences of my own...."
"We shall look forward to hearing your story to-morrow," said the reed-warbler. "We are too much upset to talk any more to-day."
Just then, the carp"s tail sank to the bottom.
Goody Cray-Fish caught it and dragged it to her hole.
"Poor people must be content with crumbs from the rich man"s table,"
said she.
CHAPTER VIII
The Mussel
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The next evening, the reed-warbler peeped down into the water.
The fresh-water mussel was sitting there and yawning as usual. There was nothing out of the way about him.
"Good-evening," said the reed-warbler. "How are you, after your friend"s unhappy end?"
"Thank you," replied the mussel. "It has not disturbed my composure in the least. Generally speaking, nothing disturbs my composure. Only, if any one sticks something between my sh.e.l.ls, I become furious and I pinch."
"I should do the same in your place," said the reed-warbler. "And your equanimity is really quite enviable. But still I think that the misfortune of one"s neighbour ... of your intimate friend."
"I have no neighbour," said the mussel. "And the carp was not my intimate friend. We were not rivals, that is all. In a case like that, it"s easy to be friends. I was often amused at the carp"s way of talking. But I never contradict, except when any one sticks something between my sh.e.l.ls. The carp had had to do with human beings; that"s what it was. It always makes animals so ridiculous. You"re the same, for that matter."
"I look upon that as a compliment," said the reed-warbler, who was a little offended but did not wish to show it. "However, I have nothing to do with human beings, except that they protect me and have not the heart to do me harm, because of my pretty voice. They stop and listen to me as they pa.s.s. Many a poet has written beautiful lines about me."
"Oh, really?" said the mussel. "Upon my word, they did something of the sort about me too. But what they said was lies."
"What did they say?"
"There was a lot of rubbish about pearls."
"Oh, have you pearls? Wife! Wife! The mussel has pearls!"
"Not a bit of it," said the fresh-water mussel. "Do stop shouting like that. You can be heard all over the pond. If any one overheard you, I should be in danger of being fished up. Thank goodness, there are no pearls formed on me!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"O-oh!" said the reed-warbler, in a disappointed tone.
"It"s just the pearls the poets talk their nonsense about. They sing of how happy the mussel is with the precious pearl he guards, and all that sort of thing.... Do you know what a pearl is?"
"No," said the reed-warbler.
"It"s a nasty, pushing parasite ... something like the double-animal that hurt the carp. When it comes into us, it hurts us, of course. Then we cover the brute with mother of pearl till it dies. And then it sits on our sh.e.l.l and plays at being a pearl."
"Oh!" said the reed-warbler. "Do you hear that, wife? All our illusions are vanishing one by one. Soon there will be nothing but vacancy around us."
"Oh, it won"t be vacant so long as we have those five greedy children!"
said she. "They are crying for more."
"They shall have no more to-day," he answered, crossly. "You and I have been running and flying about for them all day long. Now, upon my word, I intend to be left in peace to have a chat with the neighbours. Let"s give them a flogging."
And a flogging they got. And then they cried still more and then they went to sleep.
"You hinted last night that you were not born here, in the pond," said the reed-warbler. "Tell us where you come from."
"With pleasure," replied the mussel. "I am fond of a gossip in the evening myself. And no one will believe that I have had any experience, because I move about so little.... But wait a bit. There"s a saucy person there I want a word with...."
It was no other than Goody Cray-Fish.
She had crawled nearer and was fumbling at the mussel with her legs. Now he slammed his sh.e.l.l down upon one of them and cut it off in the middle.
Goody screamed like one possessed and hammered away at the mussel with her claws, but he only laughed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE SLAMMED HIS Sh.e.l.l DOWN"]
"What a common fellow!" cried Goody. "Can"t he leave a respectable woman alone?"
"Aye," said the mussel, "when she doesn"t go for me!"
"A wretched mussel like that!" she screamed. "A mollusc! He is much lower in rank than I and he dares to be impertinent. I have twenty-one pairs of legs and he knows it: how many has he?"
"Come along, with all the one-and-twenty!" said the mussel.
Goody went on scolding and then the reed-warbler interfered:
"Drop that strong language now," he said. "It doesn"t matter about those legs. I have only two myself."
"I should be sorry to be found lacking in respect for you, Mr.
Reed-Warbler," said the cray-fish. "I know who are my betters, right enough. But I can"t understand how a fine gentleman like you can care to talk to one of those molluscs."
Scolding and grumbling, she withdrew to her hole, but left her head and claws hanging outside. The mussel opened his sh.e.l.l, but kept four or five of his eyes constantly fixed on Goody. These eyes were on the edge of the mantle which lay in the slit between the sh.e.l.ls. As soon as the cray-fish made the slightest movement, he closed his sh.e.l.ls at once:
"One"s soft inside all right," he said. "But one shows the hard sh.e.l.l to the world."
"Go on with your story," said the reed-warbler.
"I was born in another pond, far from here," said the mussel. "I can"t give you a detailed description of it, because, as you will understand, one in my position does not have many opportunities of looking about him. It was not as grand as in the high-cla.s.s carp-pond, that"s sure enough. To be honest with you, I think it was much the same as here--an awful heap of rabble of every kind, but lots of mussels in particular.
They sat in the mud as close as paving-stones and took the bread out of one another"s mouths. If you had a mouthful of water, it was generally mere swipes. Some one else had sucked all the goodness out of it, you see."
"What did you do then?" asked the reed-warbler.